Hasta La Ideas

The last couple of years have been fairly rough on retail giant Gap. From their founder suddenly passing away, to allegations of design theft, to the great logo redesign debacle of last year, to the exits of their famous former executive vice president, Patrick Robinson, and Todd Oldham from Old Navy, it’s been something of a roller coaster. Add to that lagging sales (the LA Times reports that “profit fell 23% to $233 million” and that the “company’s stock is down 13% year-to-date”) and there seem to be some pieces to pick up and some “dust off and try something new” in order. Enter the retailer’s new fall campaign, which is set to spotlight their denim design studio in Los Angeles, giving “a transparent look at the designers and how they come together each day to create the latest in denim fits, fabrics and washes,” by showing that this design studio of theirs “feels like the personal atelier of a denim architect, not the headquarters of a global brand.” So if authenticity is the new black, that’s what they seem to be gunning for. Decide for yourself how successful you think the effort might pan out for them in this, the two-minute launch film for the new campaign:

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Speaking of MoMA, as we were in that earlier post, this weekend the museum’s PS1 branch kicked off two celebrity-heavy programs by the same two celebrities. The first is a collaboration between film director Gus Van Sant and actor-turned-everything-else called My Own Private River, which ” is comprised of unused footage and dailies from Van Sant’s 1991 film My Own Private Idaho.” The film reportedly focuses on River Phoenix‘s character and “is more observational and less linear than its original iteration.” The second project is the launch of the month-long Summer School series of master classes, taught by Van Sant, Franco, and media theorist and RISD professor, Francisco J. Ricardo. The classes will run, presumably at least once per week, for the whole of August, and of course its limited slots filled up in mere seconds, so don’t start planning your summer around getting schooled by Franco. Here’s a bit about how the program will function:

Modeled after European summer academies and especially relevant considering that MoMA PS1 is housed in a former school, Summer School makes the museum grounds a campus again with Master Classes taught by contemporary practitioners. The intimate space of the museum provides a setting for candid conversation, experimentation and practice. As a part of the program, students attending the first Master Class will be assigned “homework” for the subsequent sessions, establishing an ongoing, sustained dialogue between teachers and students, institution and visitor.

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Like we’ve been saying for the past couple of days, it’s a week full of closures to high-profile lawsuits. We’ve very nearly reached the end of the week, so let’s continue, shall we? The legal battle that started more than seven years ago between filmmaker George Lucas‘ company Lucasfilm and designer Andrew Ainsworth has finally come to something of an end, though we’ll believe it’s finally over when we see it. After winning a $20 million copyright infringement suit in the US against Ainsworth for selling replicas of the iconic Star Wars Stormtrooper helmets (which he himself had originally helped design), the company took the fight to the UK, where the designer was still making them available for purchase without their permission, nor the hefty licensing fee that presumably goes with such a thing. However, after losing both that original lawsuit and then its appeal, Lucas decided to fight back one last time by taking the case all the way to the UK’s Supreme Court, and bringing in big guns like James Cameron and Steven Spielberg as vocal support. However, it apparently wasn’t enough to sway the court and Lucas has once again lost the fight. “If there is a Force, then it has been with me these past five years,” Ainsworth told the AFP. However, Lucas did wind up making a slight inroad, with the court ruling that “that the director’s copyright had been infringed in the United States by the 62-year-old designer selling his work there, paving the way for proceedings to be brought in England over the alleged breaches.” So while the company was able to chip a tiny bit away, they clearly aren’t thrilled with this third rejection, judging from the press release they issued shortly after the verdict. Here’s a bit:

The decision unfortunately also maintains an anomaly of British copyright law under which the creative and highly artistic works made for use in films — which are protected by the copyright laws of virtually every other country in the world — may not be entitled to copyright protection in the UK . Lucasfilm remains committed to aggressively protecting its intellectual property rights relating to Star Wars in the UK and around the globe through any and all means available to it, including copyright, trademark, design patents and other protections afforded by law. We encourage the UK government’s recent efforts to modernize its copyright and design laws to afford full protection to three dimensional artistic works.

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Looking for an edifying alternative to summer movies (all of which seem to star Jason Bateman and/or wizards)? Grab some Sno-Caps, dim the lights, and click on over to the Independent Television Service’s Indies Showcase. Launched today, the free online film festival will offer up 20 documentaries by independent filmmakers as ITVS celebrates 20 years of funding, presenting, and promoting award-winning documentaries and dramas on public television and cable (we have them to thank for PBS’s Independent Lens series). Each full-length program will stream for free for three days on the ITVS website. Among the documentaries on deck are Paul Fierlinger’s Still Life with Animated Dogs, King Corn, Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes, and Please Vote for Me, which follows a third-grade class election in Wuhan, China (a talent show and a debate is involved). Look for the full film line-up to be posted in the coming weeks. The ITVS Indies Showcase runs through September 22.

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What do a Florida state park, a young dandy tap dancing in the rain, and two lovestruck bunnies have in common? All can now be seen on televisions at The Standards in New York, Miami, and Los Angeles as part of the 2011 StandART in-room video art series, which launched this week. Curated by the sharp-eyed folks at nonprofit Creative Time, the public art project includes Terence Koh‘s “Rabbit Holy Days,” a new work conceived and commissioned for the program. The six-minute video, originally shot in 16mm under Koh’s direction by filmmaker Jake Yuzna, follows the love story of two bunnies navigating the corridors, rooms, and public spaces of The Standard, New York. Also on view are videos by Slater Bradley (“The Abandonments”), Kalup Linzy (“Labisha’s Bonus Track and Sit Down Child”), Allison Schulnik (“Forest”), Andrew Cross (“Prelude from The Solo”), Naomi Fisher (“Myakka”), and Estefanía Peñafiel Loaiza (“Sans Titre Paysaye”). Here’s tiny pieces of all seven films, in a video collage featuring the percussive wizardry of drummer Carl Palmer, who stars in Cross’ work.

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